Giving Thanks, Part 2

I love Thanksgiving. I love the tradition of gathering around a meal, everyone contributing to the meal in some way, thinking about what you are grateful for, and giving thanks. I love celebrating with family, celebrating with friends, and sometimes celebrating with people you've only recently met. I've celebrated Thanksgiving in Michigan, New York, Florida and California. This year I'm headed to Philadelphia.

My friend Karen from college, whose house a few of us are staying at in Philadelphia, is someone I've spent a few 'friends Thanksgivings' with when we all lived in New York, during the Thanksgivings I didn't travel to be with my family. For some reason I keep thinking of one particular Thanksgiving where we had gone on a wild goose chase to several stores on the Upper West Side - (including Fairway at 8 pm on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving!) - in search of rutabaga which another friend was insistent on as part of her family's tradition - "It won't be Thanksgiving without it."

Some years of course you are feeling a bit more celebratory than others; some years are quiet years. Fall of 2008 wasn't a great year for many people. I, too, was going through a season of loss, as my stepmother and a good friend had recently died. Though...Thanksgiving comes and it reminds you of what and especially who you do have in your life, and I remember Thanksgiving 2008 with Ellen and Jane and other friends being warm, cozy and very happy.

Among many of the people I love, 2009 has brought a lot of joy in. New marriages, engagements, babies and babies on the way, homes, jobs. Others are on the cusp of something completely brand new. I have quite a lot to be thankful for this year, but most of all, it's for the people in my life.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!